融合文化研究 第20号 February 2014 A Short Introduction to R.H. Blyth: A Lecture at Japan Foundation, London, on 10th of October, 2013, co-sponsored by Japan Society R.H. ブライズの生涯とことば（抄） UEDA Munakata Kuniyoshi 上田 邦義 ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――― Abstract: これは 2013 年 10 月 10 日、ロンドン Russell Square House の国際交流基金で行った講演記録 である。日英協会・国際交流基金共催。R.H. ブライズは 1898 年 12 月 3 日、英国エセックス州生まれ。第一 次大戦中は「人殺しはできない」として徴兵を忌避しロンドンの刑務所で肉体労働に服し、戦後ロンドン大学 で英文学専攻、翌年教員資格を取得、日本支配下の朝鮮は京城大学予科に英語教師として赴任。そこで鈴木大 拙著 Essays in Zen Buddhism（『禅論』）に出会い、以後日本文化、特に禅と俳句研究に傾倒。妙心寺別院、 華山大義老師のもとに参禅。1940 年大拙の故郷金沢の四高に転じたが、翌年太平洋戦争勃発。神戸の外国民 間人収容所で終戦まで日本文化研究・執筆に没頭。戦時中の 42 年、英文著作 Zen in English Literature (『英 文学の中の禅』)を北星堂から出版。戦後、Haiku（『俳句』4 巻）と共にアメリカ西海岸およびパリを中心に 「禅ブーム・haiku ブーム」を巻き起こし、やがて世界各国で国際俳句を生んだ。一方 46 年には学習院大学 教授に迎えられ、46 年元旦の昭和天皇「人間宣言」の英文草稿を執筆、同年から 64 年亡くなるまで皇太子（今 上天皇）の家庭教師を務めた。また Senryu（『川柳』）ほか日本文化についての多くの英文著作を表し、さら に外務省研修所や東京の多くの大学その他でシェイクスピアやソローなどユニークな英米文学を講じ、多数の 英米文学教科書や英会話テキストを出版。54 年東京大学から文学博士号授与。59 年勲四等瑞宝章授与。さら に A History of Haiku （『俳句の歴史』2 巻）を出版。また Zen Series (『禅シリーズ』)を執筆中、64 年 10 月 28 日死去、享年 65 歳。学習院旧図書館での告別式で安倍能成院長の弔辞に「ブライズ君、オメデトウ」と。 大拙師の指示で、北鎌倉東慶寺、「鈴木大拙夫妻之墓」の後ろに埋葬された。 講演で配布された「R.H. ブライズのことば（抄）」（英文）を付した。また、講演後のアンケートおよび聴衆 のコメントの一部を収録した。 Key words: R.H. Blyth, conscientious objector, Zen, poetry, Haiku, Senryu, humour, Thoreau, Daisetz T. Suzuki, Emperor’s Private tutor R.H. ブライズ、良心的徴兵忌避者、禅、詩、俳句、川柳、 ユーモア、H.D. ソロー、鈴木大拙、皇太子（現天皇）の家庭教師 ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――― Lecture: A Short Introduction to R.H. Blyth Good evening, ladies and gentlemen: It has just occurred to me that I may have met some of you about thirty years ago at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, as I gave lectures there several nights before the performances of Noh in 1983 and 84. - 4 - 上田 邦義 R.H. ブライズの生涯とことば（抄） It is my special honour to be able to talk tonight on my British mentor, Professor R.H. Blyth, in his home country. He left his home country in 1924 at the age of 25, and never returned except once; it was while he was still young and he stayed in England about one year and never more. I think I should talk about his life first chronologically, then discuss his ideas and way of life, referring to the quotations from his writings. Reginald Horace Blyth was born at Layton (now Leytonstone), Essex, on 3rd of December, 1898, and soon moved to Ilford, Essex and attended Cleveland Road Primary School and then the County High School for Boys. During the first world war he served time as a conscientious objector at Wormwood Scrubs in London. I wonder whether it is still there. (Response from the audience, “Yes”.) It seems he was influenced by his grandfather as well as Bertrand Russell and other writers. After the war, he entered London University, specializing in English Literature and studied under Professor W.P. Ker, an authority of Medieval Literature, and he studied many subjects. Blyth received a B.A. with First Class Honours in English in 1923. Then he obtained his teaching certificate from the London Day Training College in 1924. He married one of his classmates, Annie Berkovitch, and moved to Japanese occupied Korea to teach at Keijo (Seoul) University. One day Professor Blyth told us in a class at Tokyo University of Education that he had loved “the grass in the green field” and got interested in Buddhism. As he got interested in Buddhism, he wanted to go to India. He wanted to go to India, but he could not enter there; “therefore, here I am.” His early adherence to animistic philosophy and a commitment to vegetarianism led him to become interested in Buddhism, and he wanted to go to India. But he could not approve of the way some of his countrymen were treating Indian subjects, and he accepted an invitation to move to Seoul. While teaching in Korea, he wrote some poems: two were printed in The London Mercury (August 1927) and two others in the Korean school magazine Kaikon- Jidai. He became enthusiastic about Japanese culture, especially haiku and its Zen Buddhist origins and philosophy. His marriage was not successful. His wife returned to England in 1934 with a Korean boy whom they adopted, and the two divorced. This is the only time in his life Blyth returned to his home country. The divorce was a bitter experience for him. He eagerly read D.T. Suzuki’s Essays in Zen Buddhism, and he practiced zazen (Zen-sitting, or Zen meditation) at the Myoshinji-Betsuin Zen temple in Seoul under Kayama Taigi Roshi. In 1937 Blyth married a Japanese woman, Tomiko Kijima, and wishing to understand her people and culture, he moved with her to Japan in 1940. They settled in Kanazawa, Suzuki’s home town, and Blyth taught English at the Fourth High School, now Kanazawa University. With the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, he was interned as an enemy national. In the internment camp in Kobe, in the west of Kyoto, he devoted himself to study and writing, finishing his first book, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics. This was published in 1942 in the midst of the - 5 - 融合文化研究 第20号 February 2014 war, with the Hokuseido Press in Tokyo, abiding by their prewar publication agreement. When I asked the President of the Hokuseido Press after Blyth’s death how they could publish a book written by an enemy national in the enemy’s language, which was prohibited to use in Japan, President Nakatsuchi answered plainly, “We just kept our promise.” After the war, in 1945, Blyth was invited to Tokyo’s Gakushuin University, the former Peers’ School, as a professor of English. The following year, he took up a farther position as the private tutor of English to Crown Prince Akihito, who is now the Emperor of Japan. Also, Blyth facilitated Emperor Hirohito’s historical declaration of 1st of January, 1946, that he was a human being rather than a god. Blyth was invited to teach English at several other universities and organizations. He was a unique teacher, with a profound commitment: “to give (and receive) something more than sentence patterns”, he writes, “to achieve the object of life, the communication of souls.” In the early 1950s, Zen in English Literature and Haiku (4 Vols.) were widely circulated among enthusiastic readers in areas of America and Europe, especially California and Paris. Aldous Huxley writes, “There is a very curious book by a man called R.H. Blyth, called Zen in English Literature. Blyth is a professor at some Japanese University and has lived in that country for many years. The book deals with the relation between moment-by-moment experience of Things-as-they-Are [and] Poetry. It is a bit perverse sometimes, but very illuminating at others.” In the Sunday Times in 1958, Huxley mentioned Blyth’s book as his favourite. In 1954, Blyth obtained a Doctor of Letters by the formal submission of his works on Haiku to Tokyo University. He wrote assiduously: Senryu, Survey of English Literature, Japanese Humour, Oriental Humour, Zen and ZenClassic, History of Haiku, as well as many English textbooks for students. Hokuseido Press was the publisher of all but a few of his works. In 1959, Blyth was decorated with “KunYontou Zuihoushou” by the Emperor. Blyth’s whole life may be epitomized in his following passage, from the Preface to Humour in English Literature, written five years before his death: I also once thought, rightly enough, that poetry is the only important thing in the world. I now think, at last quite rightly, that humour, in its broadest meaning, and as including or rather suffusing poetry, is the real thing. (1959) If, as D.T. Suzuki writes in his memorial article, “he was first and foremost a poet with a wonderfully keen and sensitive perception,” Blyth was also a perfect humorist. He looked a mixture of Charlie Chaplin and Laurence Olivier, (when I wrote so in my letter to him, he was pleased, according to his secretary), and could make any person laugh, including the Empress, at any time he liked. Blyth wrote to me in 1963 from Oiso, where he lived during his last years. The letter is full of humour and is an indication of the spirit in which he threw himself wholeheartedly into life and work. - 6 - 上田 邦義 R.H. ブライズの生涯とことば（抄） “…..After teaching at the Gaimusho three hours in the morning, I have to teach at the Girls dept. of the Gakushuin 1-2:30; at Waseda 2-4:00; at the Jiyu Gakuen 3.30-4.30; and at Kyoiku Dai 4.30-5.30. As you see, these times overlap in the most interesting way, leaving me a minus quantity in which to pass from one place to another. It reminds me of the title of a book: “What men will do for money.” I am building a house, two-storied, all by myself, and when I am too exhausted to lift even the lightest hammer I am translating from 禅門公案大成［Collection of Zen Koans］for the next Zen Book….” When I visited his home, I felt it was very Blyth-like that he had built his house with a big living tree growing in the middle of a room, up through the floor and out through the roof into the sky. In one corner of the room, I found a fascinating organ, which I learnt Blyth had constructed by himself, by combining two different organs. Blyth loved to play various musical instruments: organ, piano, violin, viola, cello, flute, recorder, oboe, clarinet, and others. He especially loved the music of Bach as much as he loved the haiku of Basho. After Blyth’s death, his secretary, Akiko Kobayashi, contributed a bulk of Bach scores to the Tokyo Bach Society in Ginza.